Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Something

Blogging like so many other things is easy to just stop doing. We all go through life with a set of priorities, for me it goes like this: family, work, running - nothing else happens until those priorities have been satisfied and typically once I reach the third item on the list, it is time to go back to the first item without ever moving further down the list at all. It also turns out that starting a brand new job with two kids is noticeably more hectic than working at the same job for the past decade and having two kids. Who knew? Anyway once I had stopped blogging for a week, then two, then a month, then five, it was markedly easier to not blog than to blog. And always the challenge is, when you start up again, where do you start? And finally the answer came just start with something.... Any old thing.

So here is my something.

I have been going through a symphony of injuries. I like the word symphony because of its implication that these injuries were all playing together to create a whole greater than the sum of parts which is definitely how I experienced them. It began in late May when I offered to pace a friend for part of her marathon. She was in sub-3 shape and I was kind of well, in excellent donut eating shape by that point. But I figured with my experience, muscle memory, blah blah blah I could pull it off! And I did! To the tune of 14 km at 3:05 pace (my friend did go on to PB though due to various factors did not break 3) but back to the symphony of injuries, I actually wound up winning 32 km that day when all was said and done. This might not be particularly far in absolute terms but it happened to be about 18 km further than I had recently run. Enter injury number 1 - joint pain in the toes for which I immediately took 18 days off.

So I did everything by the book, time off, rehab, stretching, I even came back on a walk run plan. I WALKED RAN - I was so mature, patient and good and was rewarded with immediate severe Achilles tendinitis which really, I must say, pissed me right off. I rightly felt like I had DONE MY TIME and that if my body was going to spring another injury on me it should have had the common decency to do so while I was rehabbing the first so that I could have taken care of both together -bc we all know that that is how bodies work right? Anyway I then discovered eccentric heel drops (god, I LOVE that name) which studies have shown that 3 x 15 per day can improve Achilles pain in even long term chronic cases. So, of course, I started by doing 100 a day because, apparently, I had used up my dose of intelligence and maturity for this year with the walk-run thing. Anyway that, predictably, led to calf strains in both calves. Then I tried heel inserts to ease the Achilles which led to weird ankle injuries and on and on and on.

In the midst of all of this I really did begin to seriously wonder if I am simply at the end of my lifespan as a runner. Sure, we all hear about the 90 year old who is still running a sub whatever marathon and I always assumed that would be me too, I really have no back up for self fulfillment and am counting on this body to carry me through. In the midst of this symphony however I began to realize that being an octogenarian road runner is not guaranteed. This body came with no guarantees which might seem like kind of an obvious thing to say but really, somehow I thought maybe mine did. So,on the eve of my 40th birthday I began to wonder if this was it, because not only did I seem to be chronically injured but even when not injured I was just running so much slower than I used.... I think I have said this before but my marathon pace seems to have become my half marathon pace And my 10 km pace seems to have become my 3 km pace etc.

So this is where I am now - I am back running, up to 15 km. sometimes I even get a whole 5 km that is pain free but importantly, the number of pain free kilometres seems to be slowly increasing. The acute Achilles issues seems to have dullened back into their old baseline chronic condition ( yay, back to chronic). I am doing regular eccentric heel drops and not being stupid about it. I think that my lifespan as a runners not yet ended though I truly do believe now that I will never run as fast as I used to. But I am starting to be okay with that - truly, if I can continue to run at any speed, I will work to appreciate that. In fact one very run I say out loud: "I appreciate this." How's that for maturity?

3 comments:

Yay, PPC is still out there, pushing the limits! 100heel dips?? Ha :) any pool close enough to do some deep water running once or twice a week to really crank up the excitement meter (but possibly increase your running injury free)? Find a super duper massage person as an extra recovery "tool"...? Yoga? Sorry, you've likely had these thoughts before being so super intelligent and mature ;) last thought would be to reduce inflammatory foods in the diet (inflammation = injury and pain) to see if there is a change...will you do anything big for your 40th?

I was so happy to see your update pop up in my reader! As for injuries cropping up at irrational and inconsiderate times, how true and how frustrating. I haven't been in the running game nearly as long (or fast) as you, but I'm already pretty sure that my body's more (and less) than a well built machine. How else to explain why injuries crop up and stubbornly refuse to heal when your job's stressing you out? (Which is, of course, when you need a good run the most!)

My husband and I have a phrase we use when one of us manages a particularly deft child-management coup -- "Parenting Gold Star!" we'll exclaim, and give a high-five. I wish someone were around to give us runners a "Running Gold Star" when we actually manage to do the right, mature, restrained thing. Because the rewards otherwise aren't nearly as consistent or immediate as I want them to be :-)

Eccentric heel drops are part of my life because of Haglund's deformity and have helped keep me going - and I wrote about it maybe a year ago. My chronic achilles problems can't be fixed and I'm still trying to get out there for one more run.

Post-Pregnancy PBs

About Me

I recently became a mommy and nearly simultaneously moved from my home & native land to Italia. This blog details my adventures in both endeavors but also focuses heavily on running which is a constant in my life.